Unlike the Internet,
most BBSs were self-contained islands, incapable of connecting with
any other BBS to forward or receive messages.This situation began to
change in the late '80s with the advent of shoestring networks,
like FidoNet,
in which participating BBSs
were programmed to exchange files during off-peak phone times;
though immensely successful given their modest infrastructure, such BBS
networks have largely been absorbed into Internet
in recent years.

Tom Jenkins, inventor of FidoNet, had a connection
to the early eighties San Francisco punk
scene.